Housing
Repairing obligations divide a home into parts, and the division is the point
Most systems split responsibility for a rented property between structure, installations and contents, and…
· 4 min read
Callum Rees
Features writer, What's Your Case
Callum joined to cover consumer, housing, work and stayed for the awkward questions and prefers a plain explanation to a clever one.
13 articles
Housing
Ending a tenancy is a sequence, and skipping a step usually restarts it
The formality around ending a letting is not bureaucracy for its own sake; each stage exists to make the…
· 4 min read
Family & Estates
An executor holds property for other people, and that changes everything
Agreeing to administer an estate is accepting a fiduciary role with personal responsibility attached, which…
· 4 min read
Work
Redundancy is about the job disappearing, not the person failing
Dismissal for economic reasons is treated as its own category in most systems, with distinct conditions…
· 3 min read
Family & Estates
Capacity is measured decision by decision, not person by person
Legal systems generally ask whether someone could understand and weigh a particular decision at a…
· 4 min read
Family & Estates
An estate pays what it owes before it gives anything away
Beneficiaries receive what is left over, and the order in which an estate meets its obligations is one of…
· 3 min read
Housing
Owning a flat often means owning a long lease rather than the building
Where homes are held under long leases, the service charge is the mechanism through which the building is…
· 4 min read
Family & Estates
Giving something away in your lifetime is a different act from leaving it in a will
A lifetime gift takes effect immediately and cannot usually be recalled, while a will can be changed until…
· 4 min read
Courts
Which country decides the dispute is a question of its own
Cross-border arrangements raise two separate issues before anyone reaches the merits: which courts may hear…
· 3 min read
Housing
Disrepair and unfitness are two different complaints about the same house
One is a private obligation owed under the letting and enforced by the tenant; the other is a standard…
· 4 min read
Work
Leave for a family reason is a set of separate entitlements, not one
Caring obligations are handled by several distinct mechanisms that people merge into a single idea, and the…
· 4 min read
Work
Resigning because of how you were treated is a claim with a high bar
Systems that allow a resignation to be treated as a dismissal require a serious breach by the employer, a…
· 4 min read
Courts
Most civil hearings are public, and that is part of the cost of bringing one
Open justice is a structural principle rather than an oversight, which means a private dispute taken to…
· 3 min read